The Reluctant - Father's Guide To Being A Dad

“I never wanted kids,” says Sorabh Pant, taking a swig of his Erdinger beer. “I just never got the idea of children. Heck, I didn’t even want to get married.” On this balmy afternoon, the stand-up comic is seated at Woodside Inn in South Mumbai, “trying to get some writing done” between meetings, press interviews and testing new material at open mic nights.

- Nidhi Gupta

He’s on the phone a lot – but that’s because he’s coordinating a play date with his son for later in the day. “I used to think if I didn’t have all these responsibilities, I’d be able to achieve more on the work front,” he says. “Holy shit, was I wrong.”

Pant has, in the past five years, spawned East India Comedy, one of the country’s most successful comedy companies, a couple of best-selling novels and two brand new human beings: His two-year-old son, Vikramaditya, and five-month-old daughter, Nayantara. Now, he has a two-hour show, pithily titled My Baby Thinks I’m Funny, on tour and streaming on Amazon Prime Video; a third novel on its way this year; but he’s retired from baby-making. Even though he “absolutely” loves kids now.

“Well, not all of them, of course,” Pant says. “Like most humans, it’s a bit hit-and-miss too. But most of them are awesome.” He wears fatherhood well, as his over-a-million Twitter followers would testify. He’s fitter, his stand-up career’s on fire – enough to branch out on his own – and his children are the toast of his Instagram feed.

Here, Pant talks to GQ about negotiating the tricky territory of young parenthood, and how to do it the 21st-century way, clichés included. Yes, you won’t sleep for about a hundred years, but it’ll be worth it.

Spend as much time as you can with your child.